Thursday, March 27, 2014

This piece is the third and last of my Insert Series. I like to call it "The Closure". After a lifetime chained to a person or problem. What happens when you finally no longer have that obstacle in your life? Are you relieved because you can finally start living your life for yourself or are you more crippled than you were before? I decided to go with the more eery feeling for the conclusion of the this series. I wanted my audience to decide for themselves. Although I am lifted from the burden of my past it has also left me broken and fragile. Through time I will become stronger but the constant reminder of my past is my memory. Although you can move on from bad situations you cannot erase memories that were embedded from your brain.

Because this is part of a series I of course wanted to continue my perfecting my pen and ink techniques. The darkness around the bodies I created by letting my pen run free and having a loose wrist.I of course added the blue and red ink to bring the piece to another dimension. The charcoal I have started learning to use has brought my pen and inks to another level. The shading and variety of the color black has been a tremendous help with my biggest problems.

With any project I always have my community in mind, my community is everybody. I believe I connect with every person on the planet in some way. I got the entire series from a novel I had read called She's Come Undone. Long story short, the protagonist of the story has had a hard life and ends us having a major melt down in her twenties. The novel uses counseling and psychological help to bring the woman back to life and she ends up having a great life in fact. I have always wanted to reach a greater audience, I have always wanted to help as many people as I can, be a shoulder to lean on and give others the advice they need to uplift their spirits. I created this series as a visual form of counseling and closure. I hope people look at these pieces and relate them to their own life. What is holding you back, who is controlling your happiness, what is your crutch and after you overcome your personal obstacle how do you spend the rest of your life?

This project was inspired by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Hundertwasser's original and unruly

artistic vision expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, philosophy, and design of facades, postage stamps, flags, and clothing. The common themes in his work utilised bright colors, organic forms, a reconciliation of humans with nature, and a strong individualism, rejecting straight lines. The one thing I most admire about this Austrian artist is his control of color. He focuses one area on one color. Although they each color is blocked off, they all collaborate and work well together.

Because Hundertwasser's work is the complete opposite of geometric, I decided to take a risk and incorporate his use of color with geometric shapes. My teacher was shocked that I had not mimicked Hundertwasser style for style like my other classmates. I am glad I combined geometric with free-flow and the contrast worked well together. I felt that the risk I took was for the best. Although people are aware that this is Hundertwasser inspired, it is as always a Morgan Haney Original.

Throughout his work architecture is always featured. I decided to not make that the focus of my piece but rather just a component. I was not sure I would find the perfect between Hundertwasser and myself. My sketch is very different from my final piece and there was a lot of playing around with different formats and places. I love my final piece, it is a wallpaper (Morgan style, Hundertwasser color influenced) with window views of Hundertwasser represented architecture. I am happy I collaborated myself with Hundertwasser. With al my projects I always want to be represented.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

This piece had several challenges made from tedious mistakes from myself. An hour earlier in the day I had been using oil paints for another project and had wet paint on my arms and hands. For anyone that is familiar with oil paints knows they are very slow to dry. Long story short, the oil paint smudged green paint on my yellow drawing. I went ahead and added yellow and orange into the face to draw attention away from the smudges. Sad to say, my oil paint fiascos did not end there. I went ahead and assumed the yellow paint I had picked up to use was indeed watercolor, which is what I planned to use. The paint was not lying down on my watercolor paper smooth but rather rough and clumpy. Come to find out, I had in fact used oil paint for my water color! Totally bummed, I solved my problem by trying the water color pencils for the first time. They allowed me to add yellow color exactly where I needed. These obstacles taught me to pay close to my surroundings and what I use and to definitely clean up after myself!

I was getting pretty good at using a black pen to my advantage. Drawing human hair has always been a struggle for me, luckily, my own hair has so dimensions. All the curls, and twists were fun to draw and I am happiest coloring/ drawing out side the straight line. I used a variety of pen widths; thick for my basic outlines and thin for inside details. I ended up creating a swirl effect around the parts I wanted shaded instead of just simply shading it in. For my hand, I used the technique of contour lines and followed the curves on my fingers. I used spacing to represent my various shades.

There is a total contrast when I place the photo I took next to the water color I painted. The two pieces give me a two different feelings. The top photo makes it seem as though I am looking at something like an insect on the ground, as opposed to the bottom which gives me a sense I was looking through something.

After much reflection, I realized this is what I envision myself looking like when I see the face of God. He is the yellow paint, the blinding light I can't help but stare at. He sees through Me, not the other way around, With his light, he pours himself right into me, washing away all impurities I had aquired from being on Earth,. After analyzing this project, it has reassured me to live my life through God, he is my keeper and when I finally do reach him, all my sins will be swept away.

This project was the first time I had ever used prisma colored pencils. In class, we had an assignment to draw a still life of the apple. Although the apple was red, I used purple and yellow for my highlights. The prismas have so many options to choose from. The colors are vibrant and amazing for layering. I knew I wanted to use prismas to bring a piece to life. After this prisma project, my eye for color was stronger.

This photograph is actually a scanned photo I took using my home printer. This process is called scanography. which is the process of capturing digitized images of objects for the purpose of creating printable art using a flatbed "photo" scanner. I added my dove necklace and blew my breath on the screen to show condensation.

I took this photo in Art Three which was my junior year. 11th grade was not the best time for me. I was stressed from my school work, friends and family. The black space around the picture I envisioned was my own head, I felt I couldn't escape my own head. I began to envy the birds I would see around me. Their ability to pick up and leave any spot they were at. No ties forcing to return to places that may have caused them problems in their past. I believe birds are my spirit animal and I most identify with them. After completing this photo in prismacolor my senior year, this photo has a new meaning to me, I am glad to have overcome my trials and tribulations that once hindered me from being happy. Instead of envying birds, I now admire them.

Through each piece of art I make, my personal choice, interest or expression is always present. One of my favorite mediums to use is a basic black pen. Stippling is my most common technique but after playing around on a few sketchbooks I created my own little version of pen stroke. Dragging, shooting and letting my pen run freely on my paper gave me very unique gesture drawings. the human body is so beautiful and it is my favorite object to gesture draw. Adding red ink and charcoal were new things I tried out on this piece which I am glad I did. The second and third mediums add an extra dimension and also depth to my figures.

I took a risk with this pen and ink by not specifying the gender of my bodies. By not including hair, certain boy parts or even facial features, I let my audience define and insert their own genders. One thing I struggle with is gender. I absolutely hate identifying my bodies by gender and actually find I am limiting my audience. I want my art to speak to every one, Every race, every age, every background and ofcourse every gender. I feel people underestimate how alike other people are to them. I know I have something in common with every single person on planet and Earth and I believe this piece definitely represents that.

My personal story to this piece is that the two figures are both me. I titled this the Insert Series because I want people to make this work personal. For me, I constantly am relying and reverting to my innocence. The adolescent me is often stressed, frustrated and scared about how fast my world is turning and constantly changing. I always wish to go back to being a little girl. What was my biggest worry? I doubt I even had one, playing on a playground, drinking out of a curly straw and laying in my parents' arms when struggles arose. This work examines how much I miss when life was simpler, before I was exposed to the evil of the world.